


Build-A-Friend

by foolhardy



Series: Finding Luke verse [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bounty Hunting, Gen, Tatooine Slave Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 15:40:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11809029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolhardy/pseuds/foolhardy
Summary: Owen has been not-on the trail of Luke and Beru for nearly two months. What trail there is is cold and he is cold, hungry and loosing faith that he will ever find his family.





	Build-A-Friend

**Author's Note:**

> As always feel free to expand on, adapt, or otherwise use any ideas you find in this work.

Owen had always known what sort of person he was. It wasn't a complex problem to solve. He was a farmer: hard-working, committed and with enough stubborn cussedness to stick to it through thick and thin. That he no longer had a farm didn't change anything about him, he just had a new vocation. A desperate endeavour he had already invested all his resources in. So to his mind there was no second guessing. He was going to work until he succeeded. That was all there was to the decision.

The fact he was proving to be less than gifted in his new vocation was beside the way.

He'd been good farmer. Shmi had taught him to love the workings of machines, she had swept up his imagination with the improvements she dreamt up and brought passion to a life of routine. His da, with the patience of wind wearing down rock, had shown him how to manage their farm and the complex constant balancing act of income against all the many expenses.

He was failing at that now. No income meant no food and Owen hated being hungry. Hated that he knew the hollow shapes that hunger took. Hated that his family had know the ache of hunger too. And loathed that he had failed them then as he was failing them now.

He had water of course. Old habits are hard stone to be worn at with patience, and he had a lifetime of making this habit strong. So he always carried water with him. Unnecessary, since this moon had water falling from the sky itself like the tears of Ekkreth. He had arrived night side seventeen hours ago and the rain had not ceased and the sun had not risen. But Owen did not know that.

Deep in the rusty half defunct remains of the drainage and waste network this moon needed, Owen was working his way beneath the slaver den, a pack full of things that would explode on his back. Shmi had been a little bemused, but willing to teach her then teenage step-son. It was only later he realised why she had known such a thing so well. He had put her knowledge to the same use. Disposal of explosives had been his role, Beru was the one who had extracted them. She'd had the steadiest hands.

Most of the control systems were corroded away. Owen only had to batter at doors or walls frail with rust open a way through. These passages hadn't been built to last. At least not in this endless alien rain. Some few had required more coaxing.

Owen was stalled at a semi functional security door. It wasn't rusted through and resisted his attempt to simply batter it down. So he was jammed under the control console attempting to divert power to the doors. The system was so old and outdated that it was mostly guess work. He was failing pretty consistently when someone interrupted his soft cursing.

"Exasperated Statement: Why is it, whenever my most recent master dies, I end up in the most deplorable condition, in the most undignified scum heap that can be found, on the opposite side of the galaxy from where I last have recordings." Holding the tear he'd created in his rush, Owen stared across the small room at the now open cabinet. Red droid eyes stared impassively back. "Command: meatbag, continue repairs. I am at fourteen percent charge." Owen blinked down at the multi tool he still held. Why not? He wasn't making any progress with the door and could use a break.

"Fourteen percent," he repeated, "are your diagnostics giving you data?" The apparently functional display next to Owen's head blinked to grainy life. It would seem Owen had managed to divert power, but not to the door. The old droid had been sucking it up instead. Very old droid. It looked like most of its mechatronics were badly corroded and had probably long seized up. Still it might be salvageable. And it would be good to build something, especially a droid. Luke had liked droids. He'd taken after Shmi in that.

~

The droid had some strange programming quirks and some seriously outdated circuitry. But it had memory access to its own circuity design - which was an eclectic mess of wiring. There was a mad sort of logic to it which made it easier as he went along even if it wasn't very intuitive. The droid who was focused on complaining about its efficiency and Owen's skills finally stopped long enough to ask Owen what he was carrying.

Despite the crass address the droid used Owen told him, he saw no reason not to be truthful and, in an attempt to keep the dissertation on his faults to a minimum, Owen kept talking. He told the droid how he had found the plans to this place, the old drainage plant. And how he was working his way under a slaver den, and then went through the variations on his plan to blow all the scum into sand.

To Owen's astonishment the droid was transformed. It began gushing, of all things. First it waxed on about the delights of violence, and it proved it's vocabulary was more extensive in this than in its creative complaints. Eventually it wound down and addressed Owen again "Pleased Exclamation: Oh master, I had thought that you were a pathetic meatbag mechanic, but now I see that you were merely trying to improve your kill rate. Statement: Exploding meatbags is a crude yet effective method of pursuing the honourable vocation of violence. Excited Query: Master, may I assist in killing any survivours." Completely derailed buy the droid's about face, Owen managed a questioning squeak. "Proud Explanation: While not at optimal efficiency I am very capable of dealing unimaginative yet damaging violence to your enemies," the droid paused, "and any bystanders, friends or innocent meatbags that are in the vicinity." It continued to Owens growing horror. "Continued Explanation: I have worked on bounties before and have many sub-programs dedicated to the retrieval of body-parts as proof of kill for the collection of reward capital."

And wasn't that an idea Owen thought.

**Author's Note:**

> And so in hunger and stymied fury Owen was lead into the colourful world of the Bounty Hunter.


End file.
